YII Development in India: these are the advantages
YII framework is the short for ‘Yes, It Is’. Interesting, right? This is the second article in a series about the YII framework, and in this, we will proceed to go into a detailed discussion of the advantages of the framework, and where you can apply it.
Written in PHP5, YII is an open source component based PHP web application framework that’s safe, secure and highly flexible. The framework makes lots of things possible, hence the term, ‘Yes it is’. It is one of the most sought after frameworks because it is result-oriented and developers love it because it gives them lots of freedom, and clean DRY designs. The framework boasts of a high-performance package when compared to other frameworks.
Here are the advantages of Yii framework
1. Super-fast development
Yii has all the basic CRUD operations so developers can run all kinds of web applications quickly. The fact that the documentation is clearly written also makes it possible for the developers to release rapidly.
2. Boasts of a significant size community
Yii2 is like Symphony and Laravel, being an open-source framework for both front-end and back-end programming. There is a huge community of developers who are ready to help out at all times, and the all encompassing documentation will definitely smooth our kinks and wrinkles during their programming.
3. Supports Object-Relational Mapping
Object Relational Mapping is a mechanism or functionality that helps create a layer between the database and language, so that the developers can work the data, access and manipulate objects without having to worry about how the objects relate to the data sources. It is thus a programming technique that developers use to convert data between object oriented programming languages like Java and C# and underlying relational databases, XML repositories and other data resources. The ActiveRecord class in Yii delivers an ORM for accessing database stored data. You can find similar structures in Ruby, Codeigniter, Laravel, etc.
4. Boasts of a low-entry barrier
Developers love this framework because it is easy to learn, and the documentation is done in a simple manner, even a beginner programmer can easily follow through. And there is a gigantic ecosystem of answers and solutions, should they feel stuck in between.
5. Testing is easy with YII
Testers love the framework because of the automated testing tool, Codereception. While developing a web application, it is possible to enter test data in forms to ensure the page works as it is meant to be. Automating the process makes it easy because each time codes need to be verified, all you need to do is call up the code. This makes large and complex projects easily manageable.
6. It’s easy to install
PHP Yii is easy to install, there aren’t any complex package manager installations and configurations. There are two ways to do this, either by using the Composer or by downloading the application template. Normally, it is recommended to install with the Composer.
7. Supports database migration
Yii provides support for database migration through the Yii migrate command line tool. This provides fairly good control over database changes, and can easily upgrade and downgrade application versions whenever needed.
8. Excellent security support
Yii comes with excellent features supporting various aspects of security. The framework is integrated with various validation features to decide how validation should be done, and considers various rules and scenarios in the process. If you are looking to build a really secure app, Yii would be the answer.
The highlight is the GII Code Generator tool
Developers can’t stop raving about the GII Code Generator tool that comes with Yii2. It comes as a module, and you can enable the tool by configuring it in the application’s modules property. The tool helps create CRUD in Yii, CRUD is the short for Create, Read, Update and Delete, representing the main common tasks in relation with data on websites.
Depending on how the application is developed, developers can find the codes in the config/web.php configuration file. Gii is a highly customisable and extensible code generation tool, and comes with certain default code generators.
The tool comes with quite a few default code generators. And each of these generators can generate a specific type of code. The developer can make use of something known as snippets (these are blocks and pieces of codes, almost like an auto complete feature that you use while texting), and this prevents them from doing repetitive work.
The default code generator in GII is responsible for generating various types of code. Initially, Gii is configured to work with the local host only for security reasons, and to make it accessible on other trusted computers, you might have to run another code GiiModule::ipFilters property.
This in turn leads to super-fast development, preventing the tediousness of hand coding, and making it interesting for the developers.
Applications made with Yii
You can use the YII framework for various projects as the possibilities are endless – e-commerce, music, radio, CMS, social network site, logistics and delivery, etc. Thousands of companies rely on the framework to build and clean and powerful applications.
There are a few disadvantages with YII. For one, it doesn’t provide AR queries. Also, the Ajax features aren’t well drafted or built, so developers rely on Javascript when the requirement arises. The framework also does not allow multiple relations built up.
When might you prefer to use Yii?
There might be other famous PHP frameworks around, but several developers still prefer Yii, especially when they are looking to develop small, medium and large applications. If you are looking to develop large-scale applications, Laravel would probably be a better choice.
Final Thoughts
The advantages of the Yii framework are many, and the disadvantages are far and few, so it is definitely a go-to framework, especially for developing Swift and often selected for other corporate software as well.
It is also important to mention the other important attributes of Yii like extensibility, error handling, integration with other frameworks, topic organisation and of course, security, making it a great choice for app development. Yii is also the topi choice, thanks to the huge range of wizards to perform actions like reading, deleting, rough certain and so on.
Interesting Links:
More information about Yii Framework
Pictures: Canva
The author: Sascha Thattil works at Software-Developer-India.com which is a part of the YUHIRO Group. YUHIRO is a German-Indian enterprise which provides programmers to IT companies, agencies and IT departments.
